This
index is as complete as possible given Skywald’s custom of often dropping
credits off stories, hiding credits in the art of the story {mostly under
Hewetson’s reign—in windowsills, gables, panel borders, as debris, etc.}, the
heavy use of pseudomyns & single names and the miscrediting of stories to
the wrong artist.

Many
of the mysteries regarding credits have been solved by access to Al Hewetson’s
notes & checklists as well as the extensive aid of Christos N. Gage.Check out the end of the bibliography for
interviews with Al Hewetson, Ed Fedory, Augustine
Funnell & Maelo Cintron.You’ll be
glad you did!

Notes: Publisher: Sol Brodsky &
Israel
Waldman.Editor: Sol Brodsky with Herschel
Waldman listed as associate editor.$.50 for 64 pages.Much of the first two issues featured 1950s era reprints.The artwork on these reprints is heavily
retouched.There are no direct credits
for individual stories but authors listed on the titlepage include Wayne
Benedict, Marv Wolfman, Mike Friedrich, Noel Haven, Ross Andru & Mike
Esposito while artists listed include Don Heck, Mike Esposito, Syd Shores,
David Hadley, Bill Everett, Tom Palmer & Dick Richards.While there are only three new stories and a
new text story in this issue, some of the 1950s era art appears to have been
re-inked by Bill Everett, especially ‘Dance Macabre’ which also may have 1950s
era pencils by Syd Shores.Best story
here is Len Wein’s ‘The Deadly Mark Of The Beast!’
while Bill Everett’s pin-up has the best art.Wally Wood’s ‘The Thing From The Sea!’ has been
so heavily reworked, probably by Mike Esposito, that the art looks nothing like
Wood whatsoever!The presence of a
letters’ page is also suspect, since it featured letters written before the
first issue appeared!Al Hewetson’s
personal checklist had Mike Esposito as the cover artist but it doesn’t really
appear to be his work.

Notes:Again there are no individual story credits but the authors’
list includes Wayne Benedict, Marv Wolfman, Mike Friedrich, Noel Haven, Ross
Andru & Mike Esposito, Gardner Fox & Phil Seuling.There are no artists’ credits.Again, there are three new stories and a new
pin-up.Best art & story go to the
intriguing little witchcraft tale ‘Pressed For
Time’.‘Children Of
The Cold Gods!’ is a very odd
story.A letter to readers promises all
new stories beginning in the next issue.Gardner Fox also wrote a story dealing with Circe for Warren around this
time period.I’m fairly sure that Wayne
Benedict & Noel Haven are house names and don’t actually exist.

Notes: All new stories begin.Many of the Warren artists appearing here,
mindful of Jim Warren’s 1969 edict that you couldn’t work for Warren & his B&W
competitors at the same time, used pseudonyms to hide their identities.That might have worked for writers but for
artists such as Sutton or Ernie Colon’s, the art styles were so distinctive
that it’s hard to see how Warren could have not known it was them.This was a fairly decent issue with the best
story & art going to Bruce Jones {hiding behind the name Philip Roland} for
his delightfully disturbed ‘A Rottin’ Deal’ while good work also appeared from
Tom Sutton, Al Hewetson, Serg Moren, Jack Katz & Frank Giacoia and Chic
Stone.The pin-up by Chic Stone is
listed as Nightmare Pin-Up #2 but it is actually #3 and one of the corpses
bursting out of their graves in the pin-up is clearly Warren’s Uncle Creepy!‘Vault Of A Vampire’
is future editor Al Hewetson’s first story for Skywald.

Notes: $.60 for 64 pages with the
issues now squarebound.Ads for the
never published Science Fiction Odyssey #1 appear.The delirious ‘Hag Of The
Blood Basket’, a clear forerunner of the Skywald ‘Horror-Mood’, featured the
best story & art.The lead character
in that story greatly resembled EC’s Old Witch!There’s also good work from Chuck McNaughton, Ralph Reese, Bill Everett
& Tom Palmer.A
pretty good issue hidden behind a mediocre cover.

10) back cover ads for
Hell-Rider #1; The Crime Machine #2 and the never published Science Fiction

Odyssey #1] 1p

Notes: More ads appear for the
aborted Science Fiction Odyssey.Best
story & art go to the excellent Parisian sewer tale, ‘Slime World’, by
Chuck McNaughton & Ralph Reese.Other
good work was done by Tom Sutton, Al Hewetson, Kevin Pagan, Doug
Wildey & Serg Moren.The
Pagan/Wildey story ‘Within The Torture Chamber’ is a
bondage/torture tale of exactly the sort that the Comics Code was established
to suppress.

Notes:‘The Love Witch’ is continued from Psycho #3 and has
several pages of its story printed out of sequence.‘The Living Gargoyle’, written by Superman
creator Jerry Siegal, has nothing to do with the later Human Gargoyles’ series,
although the gargoyles are identical.The Steve Stern name is believed to be a house name, although there was
a fan writer named that in the early 1970s.It appears nowhere else, nor for any other company and it was used at
Skywald only twice, both time with artists closely related through their
fanzine work—Michael Kaluta & Jeff Jones.When the Kaluta story was reprinted Kaluta received credit for both
story & art.Best art & story
belong to Pat Boyette’s ‘The Geek!’ with other good stories from Kaluta &
Larry Todd.Jeff Rovin interviews cover
artist Jeff Jones on the letters’ page.

Notes: After a hiatus of several
months, brought on by the collapse of Skywald’s color line, the magazines
returned with some changes.Herschel
Waldman was now listed as Business Manager.The issue number appears for the first time on the cover.A reader’s contest is announced with the
prize being the original art to Bill Everett’s pin-up from #1.Best story is Al Hewetson’s ‘The Giant Death
Rat’ while the best art belongs to Ferran Sostres’ ‘The Penitent’.A contract with the Spanish art agency S.I.
to provide artwork begins to push American artists out of the Skywald pages.

Notes: Al Hewetson is now listed as
Associate Editor.Best art is provided
by Bruce Jones on ‘Hung Up’ although Felipe Dela Rosa and Pablo Marcos also
deliver high quality work.Best story is
Hewetson’s ‘The Tunnels Of Horror’, which, like a
number of early Skywald stories, takes place in the sewers of Paris.Julie (Mrs. Al) Hewetson sends in a letter complaining about Al biting
her neck at night!The Tales From The Crypt movie review reprints two EC comic
panels.The photos used as background
art in the story ‘Satan’s Graveyard’ were taken by Al Hewetson.This story also caused a falling out between
friends Hewetson & Shores when Shores became angered over what he regarded
as a vindictive ink job by Adkins, who was apparently angry over Skywald’s low
pay rates.Shores demanded a house name
{Jim Elder} be used instead of his and announced that he’d never work for
Skywald again.Hewetson spent two years
rebuilding bridges with Shores until in early/mid-1973, Shores agreed to do
another Skywald tale.Unfortunately,
Shores died before actually beginning the artwork.

9. cover: Jose Mirelles (Oct. 1972)

1) Frontis & titlepage [Al Hewetson/Pablo
Marcos] 2p

2) Markheim [Al Hewetson/Jesus Duran] 7pfrom the story by Robert Louis
Stevenson[art credited to D.

Duran]

3) The Nightmare World Of
James Edgar: Call Them Ghouls, Call Them Trolls, Call Them Things [Al

Hewetson/Pablo Marcos]
3pfrom a dream by James Edgar

4) The Guillotine [Al Hewetson/Felipe Dela Rosa] 1p

5) Zoo For The Beasts Of
The Universe [Al Hewetson/Maelo Cintron] 2p

6) Lunatic Letters’ Page/Editorial [Al Hewetson] 2p

7) The Shoggoths: The SkullForest
Of Old Earth [Al Hewetson/Zesar Lopez] 7p

8) The Abominable Dr. Phibes [Al
Hewetson] 4p[text article w/photos]

9) The 300th Birth Day Party [Al
Hewetson/Ramon Torrents] 5p

10) The Gargoyle Trilogy [Al Hewetson/Felipe Dela Rosa] 11p

11) The Night In The Wax
Museum [Al Hewetson/Villanova] 8p[The
artist’s name was variously spelled

with one or two L’s.Since his work for Seaboard/Atlas was spelled
with 2 L’s, I’ve followed that

custom.]

12) Dracula [Al Hewetson/Pablo Marcos] 1p

13) The Beast Within [Al
Hewetson/Amador Garcia] 9p

14) Next Issue Ad [Al Hewetson/Pablo Marcos] 1p

15) The Thing In The Alley
[Al Hewetson/Berni Wrightson] 1p[text
story, on back cover.]

Notes: Al Hewetson is now full
Editor and it immediately shows in the many series debuts amid full horror-mood
themes.Mirelles’ cover is a striking image.Hewetson introduces a short-lived horror host
for Nightmare, who would later be named Mr. Pook.The contents page features the first mention
of the term “horror-mood’ in this title.Maelo Cintron, one of the mainstays of the latter-day Skyward
artists, makes his professional debut.‘Nightmare World’ began a semi-regular series in which readers sent in
their nightmare, which were then adapted into stories.Although the gargoyles in the story ‘The
Gargoyle Trilogy’ are drawn identically to those of the Human Gargoyle series
{whose first chapter was also drawn by Dela Rosa, appearing in Psycho #8 at
almost the same time as this appearance}, this story was not a part of that
series.The Shoggoths series begins,
with Hewetson using H. P. Lovecraft’s Shoggoths as villains, although the
stories themselves are new, not adaptations.Hewetson’s Shoggoths didn’t physically resemble Lovecraft’s descriptions
either.This was also the first
appearance for the DarkosMansion {sometimes called
Darkkos Manse, or other variations}.DarkosMansion
was the setting for stand-alone stories tied together by the mythology of the
location, a rotting mansion in a swamp.By a printer’s error, the back cover text story & the inside back
cover ad for this issue also appeared on the back & inside back cover for
Warren’s Eerie #42, which came out the same month!This was apparently due to the fact that, for
a time, both Skywald & Warren shared the same printer.The Wrightson artwork that appeared in that
story was originally intended as a spot illo for the aborted Science Fiction
Odyssey #1.The letters’ page mentions a
script submission by Roger McKenzie.For
all the innovation taking place, this isn’t a particularly good issue, with the
stories in particular being somewhat weak.The best story & art was for the Stevenson adaptation by Hewetson
& Duran.The all original 1972
Nightmare Annual appeared between this issue & #10.

Notes:Herschel Waldman now listed as co-publisher.The ‘Horror-Mood’ phase makes its first cover
appearance.The letters’ page features
illos by Basil Wolverton, who Hewetson said inspired his use of alliteration,
and Ernie Colon.The Human Gargoyles
serial, which had debuted in Psycho #8, moves to Nightmare, with Maelo Cintron
now the artist.The lead character’s
looks and his dialogue in ‘The Proverbial Killer’ were clearly modeled on
director Woody Allen!Wrightson’s art
for the movie review was also originally intended as a spot illo for the
aborted Science Fiction Odyssey #1.The
Cintron one pager ‘Game Of Skill’ was Cintron’s sample
page, which Sol Brodsky had brought before returning for Marvel.Best story was Ed Fedory’s ‘Black Communion’
while the best art belonged to Juez Xirinius’ dynamic, moody art for ‘The
Funeral Barge’.Good work was also
supplied by Maelo Cintron, Felipe Dela Rosa, Al Hewetson, Doug Moench and Pablo
Marcos.

Notes: Pablo Marcos was listed as
Art Director for this issue only.The
lead character in ‘The Wetness In The Pit’ is based on
Skywald publisher Herschel Waldman.‘The
Horror War’ includes Richard Nixon as a character and featured a photo of Nixon
taken by Hewetson himself.Neither a particularly good issue, nor a particularly bad one.The all original Nightmare 1973
Winter-Special appeared between this issue & #12.

Notes: Augustine Funnell makes his professional debut
with ‘Monster, Monster On The Wall’.That story was originally intended as a stand
alone story but Hewetson persuaded Funnell to continue it as a series.Chic Stone’s ‘Kiss Of The
Vampires’ was probably done in 1971.‘Nightmare in The House Of Poe’ features the
best art, by Ferran Sostres, although Pablo Marcos, Juez Xirinius and Antonio
Borrell also delivered good work.Best
story is Hewetson’s adaptation of Poe’s classic ‘Premature Burial’.

Notes: Segrelles’ cover is particularly dynamic and
is probably the best single cover that Skywald ever published.The letters’ page features a photo of SydShores
and a letter from future artist Gene Day.Hewetson also mentions a story that Shores was to illustrate but Shores
died before the story was drawn.Reader
feedback is requested in a ‘Bigger Bunch Of Questions’
section.The Frankenstein story is
continued from Psycho #6 and is a part of the Frankenstein, Book II
series.That series would conclude in
Scream #6 a year later.Ricardo
Villamonte delivers the best art while the Human Gargoyles chapter features the
best story.

12) The Human Gargoyles, part 4: And They Did Battle
With The Thing From Underneath [Al

Hewetson/Maelo Cintron] 9p

Notes: $.75 for 64 pages.Villanova’s cover is rather noteworthy as it
is in paneled comic form and actually is a separate story in its own
right.Bruce Jones’ story ‘Starchild’
was done in 1971 and originally intended for the aborted Science Fiction
Odyssey.It features the best art in
this issue and is also a very good story.Best story, however, goes to Al Hewetson’s great ‘The Diary Of An Absolute Lunatic’, which could almost be a poster
child for the ‘Horror-Mood’.Good work
also appears from Maelo Cintron, Felipe Dela Rosa, Ricardo Villamonte, Doug
Moench, Jesus Suso Rego, Ed Fedory & Fernando Rubio.A photo of Ricardo Villamonte appears on the
letters’ page.

Notes: ‘The Roots Of Evil’ was originally intended as the cover story for
Scream #1.Ed Fedory’s story ‘The
Vampyre’ was originally entitled ‘Nosferatu’ but was changed due to the
Nosferatu serial that had begun running in Scream.The back cover advertises a special ‘Human
Gargoyles’ magazine {with a Vicente Segrelles cover} that was never
published.It was intended as a one-shot
magazine that would reprint all the Gargoyle chapters that had appeared thus
far.Best artwork here belongs to Suso
Rego’s work on the second half of ‘The Werewolf Macabre’.Best story is ‘Hell Hath No Face’.

17.
cover: Sebastia Boada (Feb. 1974)

1) The End Of all Vampires [Al Hewetson/Jesus Suso
Rego] 10p[story credited to Howie
Anderson]

Notes: Sebastia Boada’s makes his
Skywald debut with a strikingly erotic cover.The letters’ page promised an upcoming interview with Vincent Price that
never appeared.‘Autobiography Of A Vampire’ continued in Scream #5.

Notes: JAD’s cover is particularly
good.With the exception of ‘The Ancient
One’, all the stories in this issue were grouped together as part of ‘The 7
Tales Of The Man-Macabre’.Al Hewetson introduces the first story &
the issue as a whole.‘The Thing In The Space’ is a takeoff on Lewis Carroll’s Alice In
Wonderland.Jesus Suso Rego was probably
the best single artist that Skywald had during Hewetson’s tenue {although Maelo
Cintron was a strong presence as well}.It’s strange he didn’t achieve more fame here in the states.His women were beautiful but realistic, his
pacing & storytelling top notch and his pages looked great.His artwork again is the best in this
issue.Although the use of the multiple
pseudonyms tried to mask it, this was an all Hewetson authored issue and the
stories are all generally quite good.

8) Tales Out Of Hell: The Kingdom Of
The Dead [Al Hewetson/Jesus Duran] 10p

9) The Autobiography Of A
Vampire, part 3: My Tomb Is My Castle [Al Hewetson/Ricardo Villamonte]

10p

10) The Human Gargoyles, part 6: The Human Gargoyles
vs. The United States Of America [Al

Hewetson/Maelo Cintron] 9p

Notes: A voice balloon contest was
begun, in which readers were encouraged to fill in empty dialogue balloons from
a Ricardo Villamonte illustrated page.Al Hewetson & Jose Cardona appeared in the Shoggoth story, despite
the fact that ‘Howie Anderson’ supposedly wrote the story.‘Howie Anderson’ was one of Hewetson’s many
pseudonyms and was so popular with readers that he got his own fan mail.‘Tales Out Of Hell’
continued in Scream #10.‘The
Autobiography Of A Vampire’ is continued from Scream
#5.Best art is from Maelo Cintron.Best story is the Shoggoth tale.

Notes: At the end of the Shoggoth
story, Hewetson announces the start of a planned expedition to travel beneath
the earth to locate and battle the Shoggoths.The reader was encouraged to send in 15 cents to receive a Shoggoth
Crusade certificate, signed by Hewetson & others, making the reader a
member of the expedition!Both Hewetson
& Cardona appear in the story, while publisher Herschel Waldman has a
cameo.The letters’ page included a new
reader’s questionnaire.It also
announces that ‘The Heap’ will be returning with story & art by Duffy
Vohland & Don Maitz.That plan was
abandoned.The first page of ‘Wanted:
More Dead Than Alive’ featured a wanted poster that
was a photo of Al Hewetson in a sombrero.John Byrne made his professional debut on ‘The Castle’.During the Human Gargoyles’ story, the
Gargoyles appear on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon!Best story and art is for Al Hewetson &
Luis Collado’s superb WWII horror story, ‘A Tale Of
Horror’, one of the best Horror-Mood stories published.Collado’s beautiful penciled artwork is
particularly noteworthy.

Notes: The cover states that this
is the 1974 Nightmare Summer-Special.Only the titlepage states that this is also #21.This is largely a reprint issue with only one
new story, ‘Let Her Rot In Hell’, but it is a good
one.Cardona delivered what was probably
his best art job for Skywald.The
letters’ page mentions several never published stories that Jesus Suso Rego was
to illustrate, including ‘Screaming Bloody Murder’ and ‘Killer Fu Manchu’ {a 20
page story with Fu Manchu vs. Dracula} as well as the news that Suso would be
taking over the Darkkos Mansion serial.

13) Learn To Die In The
Tomb Of Horror [Al Hewetson/Zesar Lopez] 1p[on back cover]

Notes:Misdated Oct. 1974.It should be the Dec. 1974 issue.The error probably occurred when this issue was intended to be #21 and
was bumped back for the special reprint issue.In 1974, Skywald had planned a new magazine—the Tomb Of Horror—but it
was decided that the stands were too crowded to launch a new book at the time,
so the contents were repackaged as this issue, which was billed as the ‘Tomb Of
Horror’ Special Edition.However,
Hewetson makes it clear to the readers that this is a ‘pilot’ issue, meaning
that if the demand was there, Tomb Of Horror could
still see the light of day.The question
was rendered moot as the entire Skywald line folded with a couple of
months.Tomb Of
Horror’s kick was to have the authors & artists introduce the stories,
instead of the usual EC/Warren/Web Of Horror type horror hosts.The editorial page featured photos of Hewetson,
Augustine Funnell, Ed Fedory & Maelo Cintron as well as art by Ernie
Puchades.The artist Jose Martin Sauri
has created a bit of confusion over the last few years.He was always listed in the Skywald magazines
as either Robert or Bob Martin.One of
his splash pages was signed Martin Sauri and when I did the first version of
this checklist, that was the name I listed for
him.When Al Hewetson sent me his
checklist, he had his name listed as Roberto Martinez and, assuming that Al
would know his name, I changed my listings.Later, the Warren Companion listed him as Josep Martin Sauri and
mentioned that he was listed as Paul Martin in the Skywald books, which was
incorrect as well.I finally tracked
down a modern art listing for him {including new comic pages} where his name
was listed as Jose Martin Sauri and that is the name I am currently
listing.Best story here is Ed Fedory’s
‘The Coxsackie-Axe Murders’.Coxsackie
was his hometown at the time.Best
artwork is Ferran Sostres’ work on ‘Kill, Kill, Kill, And Kill Again’, by
Hewetson {besides the great story, that title was a great ‘Horror-Mood’
title!}.

Notes: Final issue.$1.00 for 64 pages.The cover identifies this as the 1975
Nightmare Winter Special.Only the
titlepage identifies it as #23.Segrelles painted the actual cover while Citron painted the cover
insert.The Human Gargoyles story was
originally intended for the Human Gargoyles Special advertised in Nightmare
#16.A house ad again shows the
Segrelles cover advertised for that special, but that cover was now planned for
use on a special Human Gargoyles issue of Nightmare {obviously never
released}.The letters’ page announces
that Hewetson & Sanho Kim’s ‘The Fiend Of
Changsha’ would continue in Psycho #24, thanks to reader demand.The Werewolf ad on the back cover advertised
a graphic novel that never appeared.‘Tradition Of The Wolf’ is remarkable largely for
the extraordinary number of art swipes in it.Backgrounds appear to be lifted wholescale from various Esteban Maroto
stories, while foreground characters are lifted from Maroto & Frazetta
stories done for Warren Publications, especially Frazetta’s ‘Werewolf’ from
Creepy #1.The back pages had the debut
of a 5-page ad section called ‘The Little Horror-Mood Shop Of Horrors’—a
catalog of novelty items such as Warren’s Captain Company ads displayed.A quite striking cover was done for the
intended next issue {the art is unidentified but could be by either
Sebastia Boada, the mysterious Martin Poll or Faba} which was to feature
the Town Of Evil
set of stories, a review of the Kolchak TV series and a Frankenstein
contest.A cover by Warren cover artist Enrich Torres was
intended for #25.

Psycho

1. cover: Brendan Lynch (Jan. 1971)

1) The Skin And Bones
Syndrome! [Roger Elwood/Gray Morrow] 8p

2) The Glistening Death [?/Martin
Nodell & Vince Alascia] 6preprinted from City Of The Living
Dead

Notes: Publisher: Sol Brodsky &
Israel
Waldman.Editor: Sol Brodsky with
associate editor listed as Herschel Waldman.$.50 for 64 pages.There are no credits on the stories
themselves, but the titlepage lists the authors as Gardner Fox, Roger Elwood,
Art Stampler & Wayne Benedict, while the artists are listed as David Haldey,
Paul Reinman, Gray Morrow & Mario Acquaviva.I have credited individual stories only where
the contributor’s identity has been confirmed.Like Nightmare’s first two issues, many of the stories were 1950s era
reprints from Waldman’s IW/Super Comics stock.There were three new stories and a pin-up.Best story was ‘The Gruesome Faces Of Mr.
Cliff!’ while the best art was Gray Morrow’s for ‘The Skin And Bones Syndrome!’, which, alas, was a terrible story.Lynch’s cover is quite horrific and much in
the style of the precode 1950s horror covers.The 50s reprint ‘Anatomical Monster’ has a great splash page.There is a Horror House Ad {for rubber
shrunken heads & the like—illustrated by John Severin} which takes great
care to point out that it is a real ad!Did Severin do fake ads for Cracked?

Notes: The start of all new stories.Skywald’s first series, ‘The Heap’ began,
featuring the origin and first appearance of Skywald’s most popular continuing
character.Among
readers, anyway.Hewetson himself
hated the character.One issue of a
color comic featuring the character was also produced by Skywald, with Robert
Kanigher scripting & the team of Tom Sutton & Jack Abel
illustrating.This Heap is not the same
character that Hillman published in the 1940s-1950s or that Eclipse revived in
the 1980s, although some similarities exist.Skywald’s Heap is particularly gross looking, often resembling a blob of
phlegm.The best story here would
probably be either ‘To Laugh…Perchance To Live!’ or ‘Valley Of Blood’, both written by Chuck
McNaughton.Best art is Jack Katz &
Rich Buckler’s on ‘To Laugh…Perchance To Live!’There’s also good art from Chic Stone &
Serg Moren.

Notes: Skywald’s continuation of
Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein began, with Sutton’s storyline taking place
directly after the events in her novel.The Frankenstein monster is also cover featured, with a striking cover
by Vallejo.The short-lived Love Witch debuted, with her
next & last appearance showing up in Nightmare #6.Best artwork & story easily goes to the
superb Fox/Everett tale ‘The Man Who Stole Eternity’.

Notes: First squarebound
issue.Editorial Assistant: Helen
Rudin.Tom Sutton, who wrote and
penciled ‘Comes The Stalking Monster’, often used
pseudonyms, presumably to avoid getting into trouble with Jim Warren, for whom
Sutton also worked, and who was legendary for unleashing his wrath on
freelancers who worked for the ‘enemy’.In this case, for penciling, Sutton used the name “David Cook”.For writing it is likely he meant to use his
old standby ‘Sean Todd’ but a mix-up credited it to Larry Todd, who was {and
is} a real, separate writer-artist.The
Wolfman/Buckler ‘Out Of Chaos…’ was a two-parter {concluded in the next issue}
that was particularly good and provides the best story & art this issue,
although Sutton’s work on Frankenstein, Book II and Bruce Jones’ on ‘Plague Of
Jewels’ also delivered very good stories & art.Dennis Fujitake made his professional debut
here and was warmly received.Everett’s rendering of
Skywald’s version of the Heap was probably the best rendition that character
ever received.

5. cover: Boris Vallejo (Nov. 1971)

1) A Psycho Scene [Bill Everett]
1p[frontis, pin-up]

2) Let The Dreamer Beware
[Jerry Siegel & Ralph Reese] 7p

3) Power Of The Pen! [Doug
Moench/Doug Wildey] 9p

4) Psycho Delivery [letters’ page, includes a pencil
sketch by Vallejo
of the cover for #3] 1½p

Notes: A six month gap occurred
between #5 & #6.Herschel Waldman
was now Business Manager.Jeff Rovin was
listed as Assistant Editor for this issue only.This was the last ‘Frankenstein, Book II’ story by Tom Sutton.The storyline would be continued by Al
Hewetson & Cesar Lopez in Nightmare #13.Best story here is Ed Fedory’s grisly ‘Sand Castles’.Best art was for Pat Boyette’s ‘The
Vow!’Other good stories & art
appeared from Doug Moench, Pablo Marcos, Tom Sutton, Jeff Jones and Gus St.
Anthony.

Notes: Al Hewetson was now listed
as Associate Editor.Dennis Fujitake
must have had a good laugh over that title for his story!This was Steve Englehart’s last outing as an
artist, although he’s had a long and celebrated career as a comics
writer.David Anthony Kraft delivers the
best story here with ‘Kerene’ while Pablo Marcos has the best art for ‘The
Terrible Tragedy Of The Tomented One!’.That story was by Marv Wolfman although the
title certainly seems like Al Hewetson must have had a hand in it.

Notes: Publisher: Israel Waldman;
Business Manager: Herschel Waldman; editor: Al Hewetson.For years I credited this cover to Jose
Mirelles but while searching European horror covers this painting rolled up and
this version clearly carried the very familiar signature of Erich Torres in the
lower lefthand corner!Nice to get the correct credit in.The first mention in this title regarding the
‘horror-mood’ appears.The Human
Gargoyles serial made its debut, illustrated by Dela Rosa for this episode
only.After this appearance, the serial
moved to Nightmare, where it was drawn by Maelo Cintron.‘The Psycho-Analyst’ makes its final
appearance.‘Scream Screen’ began a
regular horror movie review column.The
1972 Psycho Annual appeared between this issue and #9.Definite reflections of the horror-mood are present
in Hewetson’s ‘Have You Seen The Black Rain?’ and ‘The
Filthy Little House Of Voodoo’, which were the best stories in this issue.Best art goes to Ramon Torrents with good
work from Juez Xirinius and Felipe Dela Rosa.Jose Mirelles’ cover is also very nice.

Notes: The Slither-Slime Man is
cover featured.Hewetson must have loved
the Slither-Slime Man as he used him as a quasi-mascot representing the
Horror-Mood and in various cameos, although he would only appear in one
additional story.The ‘Horror-Mood’ declaration
is now a permanent part of the cover.Herschel Waldman listed as co-publisher.The letters’ page mentions a script submission from future comic writer
Roger McKenzie.It also includes a
favorable mention of the French magazine Pilote with a picture of a recent
cover.Also on the letters’ page, Al
Hewetson responses to Jim Warren’s Xerox Award insult.Best story here is Hewetson’s ‘The
Slither-Slime Man’, although Doug Moench and Ed Fedory also turn in good
stories.Best art is by Zesar Lopez,
making his Skywald debut on ‘A Question Of Identity!!!’.Larry Niven’s SF story would also be adapted
by Doug Moench & Vicente Alcazar for Marvel’s Unknown Worlds Of Science Fiction title in 1975.This version, by Jeff Jones, was done in 1971
and originally intended for the aborted Science Fiction Odyssey #1.The inside back cover ad not only identified
Nightmare’s new child vampire host as Mr. Pook for the first time, it was also
the only time the name was mentioned in any Skywald book.

11) Re-Write: Frankenstein [Al Hewetson/Maelo
Cintron] 2p[Not a part of the
Frankenstein serial but a

joke story.]

12) …It… [Al Hewetson/Maelo
Cintron] 1p[text story, on back cover]

Notes: Hewetson writes a fine
little text feature on H. P. Lovecraft, who, along with Edgar Allan Poe,
Hewetson credited with the inspiration for the Horror-Mood.The article contains photos of HPL’s home and
neighborhood in Providence,
RI, taken by Hewetson, who was a
former newspaper photographer.During
his trip, Hewetson was inspired to write the back cover story, ‘It’.The letters’ page announces a contest in
which the prizes are ‘gargoyle eggs’, which were actually smooth, round stones
that Hewetson & Fedory picked up along the beach!This was doubly odd as the Human Gargoyles
themselves delivered their baby the old-fashioned mammalian way.‘Re-Write’ was intended as a regular feature
in which classic horror films were to be parodied.Apparently it was poorly received as it never
appeared again.Best story & art
belong to the Hewetson/Villanova story ‘The Legend Of The
Man-Macabre’ with good work also appearing from Maelo Cintron, Ed Fedory and
Fernando Rubio.

11.
cover: Fernando (Mar. 1973)[reprinted in B&W on the frontis]

1) …and it whispered…and it wept…and it did
shudder…and it did die… [Al Hewetson/Felipe Dela Rosa]

Notes: Hewetson announces the start
of Phase Two of the Horror-Mood.The
second part of the Heap story also features the werewolf who had originally
appeared in the DarkosMansion story from
Nightmare #9.The letters’ page had a
photo of Pablo Marcos plus a photo of Al Hewetson, Ed Fedory and their wives
having a picnic in a graveyard.That
picnic directly inspired the story ‘The Lunatic Picnic’ that appeared in
#12.The little 2-pager ‘…Make
Mephisto’s Child Burn…’ is one of the most disturbing and horrific stories
Skywald would publish.Best story and
art belong to ‘Don’t Die Up There, Stanley’ by
Hewetson & Suso Rego, which was based on a real comedian who was also a
friend of Hewetson’s.Dela Rosa,
Xirinius, Borrell and Marcos also delivered high quality art.

Notes: Both Jones’ cover and the
story ‘The Swordsman Of Sarn’ were done in 1971 and
originally intended for the aborted Science Fiction Odyssey #1.This was a rather poor issue with only ‘The
Mad-Doll Man’ and ‘Welcome To My Asylum’ managing to
rise above mediocrity.‘The Weird Way It
Was’ was another takeoff on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In
Wonderland.The letters’ page featured a
photo of Gary Friedrich, who hadn’t written a story for Skywald in two years.

Notes: The cover for this issue was
intended to highlight the story ‘The 13 Dead Things’ which didn’t actually
appear until #15.The story ‘The Horror Within & Without’ was done in 1971 and originally
intended for the aborted Science Fiction Odyssey #1.A photo of Maelo Cintron graced the letters’
page, where it was revealed that former news photographer Al Hewetson took all
contributor photos.The Heap series
ended with an uncharacteristic happy ending {the Heap is taken in by his
parents to live as normal a life as a horrific looking monster can}, and a
question was asked of the readers: Did they want more of the Heap?The answer was a resounding “Yes!”, much to Hewetson’s chagrin, as he hated the
character.Plans were made to relaunch
the series as soon as an artist could come up with a suitable reconception of
the character.After Hewetson rejected
four different proposals, eventually Gene Day came up with a suitable design,
and a relaunch of the series was announced—although the Skywald line folded
before it could see print.Scream Screen
Scene was not a movie review, but a brief retelling of a particular film in
comic form.Best story here was Ed
Fedory’s ‘The Taste Of Carrion’ and the best art was
Michael Kaluta’s work on ‘The Horror Within & Without’.Good work also appeared from Hewetson, Dela
Rosa, Marcos, Rubio, Funnell & Moench.

11) I Battle The Vicious
Vampire Bats Of Transylvania And I Lived To
Tell It [Al Hewetson/Maro Nava]

8p[story credited to Maro Nava]

Notes: $.75 for 64 pages.The letters’ page featured a cartoon by Jay
Lynch and a text story by Bob Burros.In
the story ‘The Artist’s Other Hand’ the main character is drawn to look like Al
Hewetson.Kelly’s cover, which depicted
classic movie monsters, could just as easily have graced a magazine like Famous
Monsters Of Filmland.Best story is Hewetson’s ‘The Artist’s Other Hand’ while the best art
goes to newcomer Maro Nava.Other good
work appeared from Francisco Cueto, Suso and Augustine Funnell.Bit of a sloppy title for the last story, as
it mixes present and past tense verbs.

Notes: The letters’ page featured a
photo of Jose Gual.A voice balloon
contest appeared this issue.The best story in this issue, ‘The 13 Dead Things’ was originally
intended as the cover story for #13.Best art went to Maro Nava for ‘When The Bad
Moon Rises…I Am A Ghoul!’ with more fine art from Suso, Ferran Sostres and
Amador.

Notes: The letters’ page featured a
guest ‘Comics Opinion’ by Christopher Lee, which was actually an unused segment
of the interview with Lee that appeared in Nightmare #17.In a classic comment, Lee ventures that comic
characters, like the Human Gargoyles, wouldn’t work in the context of films as
there was no way {at the time} to depict them realistically.There was also a plug for Dave Sim’s fanzine
‘Now & Then Times’.A back cover ad
touts Skywald’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.The monster in the story ‘Greed’ is identical to the monster depicted on
the cover for #18.The best story here
is Hewetson’s delightful ‘The Old Vampire Lady’ while the best art would be
Ricardo Villamonte’s work on the ‘Monster, Monster’ segment and ‘Greed’.

Notes: A Horror Preview Contest
segment appeared.‘Horror Previews for
‘74’ featured a montage of panels from upcoming stories.Jane Lynch, writer of ‘The Lunatic Class Of
‘64’ was the wife of underground cartoonist Jay Lynch.The inside back cover proclaims an imminent
return of the Heap, although the announcement proved overly optimistic.The best art again was Villamonte’s, on both
‘The Black Sculpture Of The Pharaohs’ and the ‘Monster,
Monster’ segments.Good work also
appeared from Maro Nava & Felipe Dela Rosa.Best story was Hewetson’s ‘The Black Sculpture Of The Pharoahs’ although
Ed Fedory, Gus Funnell & Jane Lynch’s stories were also good.

Notes: Villanova’s cover of a man
being attacked by rats was done in the form of a puzzle and was one of Psycho’s
most striking covers.Hewetson’s Poe
adaptations were often some of the best work he did and this issue’s effort
effort on ‘A Descent Into The Maelstrom’ was no
exceptation, easily having the best story and art here.‘The Boutique Macabre’ was originally
intended for the ‘Town Of Evil’
special that was to have run in the never published Nightmare #24.A photo of Jose Cardona appears on the
letters’ page.Lady Satan’s new costume
is previewed in a pencil sketch by Pablo Marcos.

Notes: Lady Satan’s series moved
over from Scream for its last Skywald appearance.This character, as well as Skywald’s version
of the Heap, would be revived in 2003 in John Gallagher’s Bedlam fanzine from Great Britain.The letters’ page featured a photo of Luis
Collado and a letter from Christopher Lee reacting favorably to the interview
with him that appeared in Nightmare #17.Best story & art are from the Lady Satan segment.

13) Ad For Tomb Of Horror
[illustrated: ?] 1p[on back cover, ad for never published magazine]

Notes: The letters’ page revealed
that subscriptions for Skywald magazines were no longer currently available, reflecting Skywald’s uncertain future as Marvel
B&W magazines and Marvel’s distributor ate up valuable shelf space on the
magazine stands.Al Hewetson & Maelo
Cintron appear in the Human Gargoyles story, which
moved to Psycho for this issue only, probably due to the concurrent Nightmare
issue being a reprint special.Best
story was Hewetson’s superb adaptation of Poe’s ‘The Masque Of
The Red Death’ while best art honors went to both Villamonte for that
story and Cintron for the Human Gargoyles’ segment.‘The Burial Vault Of
Primal Eld!!!’ was another good story by Ed Fedory.

Notes: Hewetson presents a new
reader survey, entitled ‘Behemoth Bunch Of
Questions’.‘The Gloomb Bomb’ was done
in 1971 and originally intended for the aborted Science Fiction Odyssey
#1.‘The Fiend Of
Changsha!’ had a request for readers to write in if they’d like another
episode.Evidently the response was
positive as it would return in the final issue of Psycho.Best story here was Ed Fedory’s ‘The Claws Of
Death’ while the best art honors go to Sanho Kim’s ‘The Fiend Of Changsha!’.‘Maxwell’s Bloody
Hammer’ was clearly a takeoff on the Beatles’ song ‘Maxwell’s Hammer’.

Notes: The 1974 Psycho Fall-Special
is also Psycho #22, although it doesn’t say so anywhere in the issue
itself.There was also a 1974 Psycho
Yearbook that came out the same month, further confusing the matter.‘The Saga Of The Frankenstein Monster’ is not
a continuation of Skywald’s earlier ‘Frankenstein, Book II’ {although the
writer/artist team are the same people who concluded that series} but rather a
continuation of Hewetson’s personal take on the character, begun in Scream
#7.The letters’/editorial page was all
about H. P. Lovecraft and the Shoggoth series.It contained a Virgil Finley portrait of Lovecraft, a concept sketch of
Cthulhu by HPL himself, a checklist of Skywald’s Shoggoth stories, and a offer
for a Shoggoth crusade certificate, signed by Hewetson and others, making the
reader a part of Skywald’s crusade against the Shoggoths {playing off the fact
that Hewetson & other Skywald creators had been featured as protagonists in
the previous Shoggoth stories}.

Notes: Gene Day’s frontis work
consisted of a brief bit of prose from a horror writer {in this case, Robert E.
Howard} and a full page illo for that bit.At least 12 of these pages were completed but only two saw print.A ‘Horror-Mood Character Vote’ in which
readers could vote on their favorite continuing character was included.‘The Little Horror-Mood Shop Of Horrors’—a 5-page catalog of novelty items similar to Warren’s Captain
Company—begins appearing this issue.‘The Werevampirewolf’ story was a wordless tale.Best story was Fedory’s ‘The Curse Of The Snake Goddess’.Best art was Jose Martin Sauri’s ‘Midnight In
Wax’.Otherwise, this issue is not too
good.

24.
cover: Sebastia Boada/frontis: Gene Day (Mar.
1975)

1) A Fragment In The Life
Of Dracula: Within The Walls Of Castle Dracula! [Al Hewetson/Jose Martin

Notes: Final issue,
and the last Skywald magazine released.Now $1.00 for 64 pages.The cover stated this was the 1975 Psycho Winter Special.Only the titlepage identified it as #24.Dave Sim made his professional debut with the
story of ‘The Cry Of The White Wolf’, which featured a
photo of Sim on the splash page, along with the note that Skywald was “pleased
to introduce demented Dave Sim for the first time in the comic medium”.The letters’ page mentioned Basil Wolverton’s
‘Barflyze’ book, previewed a pencil sketch for a never published cover by
Sebastia Boada and mentioned that upcoming stories {never published, naturally}
would be written by former EC writer Carl Wessler and former Warren
editor/writer J. R. Cochran.Augustine
Funnell’s ‘Monster Monster’ serial also had one more segment that went
unpublished.‘The Fiend Of Changsha!’ returned with an extremely good segment.It’s a pity that we’ll never know how it was
to end.Best art was by Sanho Kim, Maelo
Cintron and Jose Martin Sauri.A cover
was produced for the never published 25th issue, cover dated May
1975, which stated that another episode of ‘The Fiend Of
Changsha!’ and seven more stories would have appeared there.

Notes: Publisher: Israel &
Herschel Waldman.Editor: Al
Hewetson.$.75 for 64
pages.Most stories from #1-4 do
not list a writer but Hewetson wrote all of them.According to Hewetson’s introduction, Scream
#1 was put together in response to readers’ opinions as expressed in the Bunch Of Questions survey and was Phase 3 of the Horror-Mood.The best story & art was for the
Hewetson/Cintron story ‘The Comics Macabre’, which featured lead characters
based on ‘Seduction Of The Innocent’ author Fredric
Wertham and Comics Code Authority president Len Darvin as well as Al Hewetson,
Herschel Waldman & other Skywald staffers.In the story Darvin and Wertham visit the Skywald offices to complain
about the horror comics being published, get into an argument and kill Hewetson
whereupon tiny versions of Skywald’s Heap, Frankenstein’s Monster & others
come off the comic pages lying about in the Skywald offices and kill Wertham
and Darvin!Hewetson sent a copy of the
story to Wertham, with whom he corresponded for a number of years but,
according to Hewetson, Wertham didn’t get the point. ‘The Strange Painting Of Jay Crumb’ was a spoof/takeoff on underground cartoonists
Jay Lynch & Robert Crumb.A pretty good first issue.

Notes: Lady Satan was a rare {for
the 1970s} African-American horror character that was generally well written
& illustrated.Best story here was
Hewetson’s ‘The Thing In The Black Dress’ while the
best artwork came from Jesus Suso Rego, although the stories and art are
generally quite good throughout this issue.

Notes: The issue number doesn’t
appear until page 22.Dave Sim sends in
a letter.The letters’ page also
featured a bio & photo of Domingo Gomez.Hewetson & Nava’s adaptation of ‘The Fall Of The
House Of Usher’ featured the best story & art but the ‘Phantom Of
The Opera’ adaptation was also very good as was the latest installment of Lady
Satan.

Notes: There was an ad for Russ
Cochran’s EC reprints.The letters’ page
had a photo of Ed Fedory.Lady Satan
would be continued in Psycho #19.Lady
Satan also had the best story & art in this issue although I also quite
liked the Hewetson/Sostres’s ‘The Skull Of The Ghoul’.

Notes: The back cover featured a
pen & ink version of the cover, used as an ad for the proposed Tomb Of Horror title.Pages 4 & 5 of the story ‘Are You Dead Yet?’ are out of order.‘The Autobiography Of A
Vampire’ was continued from Nightmare #17.I didn’t really like much of anything about this issue.It’s not a terrible issue, just not too
interesting.

6. cover: Faba (June 1974)

1) The Vampire Of The Opera
[Al Hewetson/Ricardo Villamonte] 15p

2) Ms. Found In A Bottle [Al Hewetson/Alphonso Font]
6pfrom the story by Edgar Allan Poe

3) Frankenstein 2073: The Death Of
The Monster [Al Hewetson/Cesar Lopez] 9p[story credited to Henry

Notes: ‘Frankenstein 2073’ featured
the death of Frankenstein’s Monster and the end of the ‘Frankenstein, Book II’
serial that had begun in Psycho #3 and was continued from Nightmare #13.The letters’ page featured Zesar Lopez’s bio
& photo.The scarred man on the
cover is modeled on actor Peter Cushing.The big news this issue was the debut of what may have been the first
modern graphic novel.Hewetson &
Suso’s ‘Saga Of The Victims’ featured two college age girls, one white and one
black, who ventured into the basement of their school only to discover a
nightmare world of pain, madness and degradation.Sounds like a BDSM novel but it wasn’t.For five giddy episodes the girls went on a
nightmarish rollercoaster ride through virtually every horror cliché one could
imagine.Hewetson stated that his goal
was to write a horror story that nobody could figure out the ending to ahead of
time.Then Scream was cancelled with a
single episode left unpublished and fans would spend years wondering how Hewetson
had planned {or even if he could have planned} to tie it all up.Finally, in the spring of 2004, British small
press publisher John Gallagher of Chimera Arts, with the permission of the late
Al Hewetson & artist Jesus Suso Rego, would publish the entire saga,
including the previously unpublished 17 page final chapter {with Gallagher
himself filling in a few missing panels}.Lo and behold, Hewetson & Suso had come up with an ending that
actually worked…and fulfilled Hewetson’s desire to lead the reader down
unfamiliar paths.If you’re interested,
both Headpress in Great Britain
{also the publisher of Al Hewetson’s The Illustrated History Of
The Skywald Horror-Mood} and Bud Plant in the USA carry the book, which is damned
good. {pun intended.}

Notes: The ‘Saga Of
The Frankenstein Monster’ is not a continuation of the Frankenstein Book
II serial that concluded in the previous issue but Hewetson’s own
interpretation of the Frankenstein saga.It would continue in the Psycho 1974 Fall Special.Best story & art are from the ‘Saga Of The Victims’.

Notes: The letters’ page offered
readers a chance to join the Shoggoth Crusade {see the Psycho 1974 Fall
Special}.‘The Mechanical Cannibals’ was
originally done in 1971 and had been intended to appear as a 10 page story for
the aborted Science Fiction Odyssey #1.It was expanded to 11 pages by inserting a pin-up page taken from what
was intended to be the frontispiece.The
original author, Harry Harrison, was one of the original EC horror
artists.Frankly, any issue the ‘Saga of
The Victims’ appeared in tended to be dominated in both story & art by that
chapter and this issue was no exception.

Notes: Hewetson’ adaptation of
Poe’s ‘Mezengerstein’ was the best story this issue while Suso’s latest chapter
of the ‘Saga Of The Victims’ continued to offer the best artwork.‘Down To Hades…To Die!’ by Gus Funnell was
also a good story.

4) A Fragment In The Life Of Dracula: Creatures In
The Night [Al Hewetson/Jose Cardona] 9p

5) The Murders In The Rue
Morgue [Al Hewetson/Cesar Lopez] 12pfrom the story by Edgar Allan Poe

6) The Art Of
Killing Human Monsters [Al Hewetson] 3p[text article]

7) The Stranger Is The
Vampire [Al Hewetson/Paul Pueyo] 10p[story is miscredited to Paul Pueyo]

8) Tales Out Of Hell, part 2: In His Master’s
Blood [Al Hewetson/Jesus Duran] 10p[story credited to

Howie Andereson]

Notes: The frontispiece carries an
ad for an upcoming 25-page Poe adaptation by Hewetson & Cesar Lopez.At least part of it was drawn, since a page
is reproduced here {see also The Horror-Mood Odyssey} but if completed, it
never saw print.‘Tales Out Of Hell’ was continued from Nightmare #19.The ‘Saga Of The
Victims’ skipped an issue to allow Suso to catch up on his deadlines.Best story would be ‘The Stranger Is The Vampire’ although it is hampered by lackluster art,
while Jose Martin Sauri has the best art honors on ‘My Flesh Crawls’.

8) The Saga Of The Victims:
I Am A Proud Monstrosity [Al Hewetson/Jesus Suso Rego] 20p[Story

was finally concluded in 2004
& published as a graphic novel by England’s John Gallagher for his

Chimera Arts Books.See notes for #6.]

9) Psycho #25 Ad [?] 1p[on back cover]

Notes: Final issue.$1.00 for 64 pages.Cover announces this as the 1975 Winter
Special.There was a six months’ hiatus
between #10 & #11.The titlepage
lists the cover artist Ballestar’s first name as Ed but Hewetson confirmed that
he made up that name because he was so tired of Spanish artists without
surnames.He also changed Spanish names
to Anglo-Saxon ones so it would appear that he had American artists working on
the magazines.The editorial page
explains why the Heap hadn’t reappreared {see notes for Nightmare #20}.The editorial page also mentions that Psycho
#25 was to be a ‘Tales Of Evil’ special edition and
that the ‘Monster, Monster’ series would end with part 9.None of those stories saw print.‘The Little Horror-Mood Shop Of Horrors’—a 5-page catalog of novelty items similar to Warren’s Captain
Company—appeared.The frontispieces
advertises a never published graphic novel by Hewetson & Martin
Sauri.

5) The Myth Of Dracula [Al Hewetson/Ramon de la
Fuente] 7p[brother
of Victor de la Fuente]

6) …Blind Fate [Ed Fedory/Francisco Cueto] 7p

7) The Cursing Of Captain Skull [Gardner Fox/Steve Hickman] 10p

8) The Furnace Of Hell
[Robert Kanigher/Amador Garcia] 12p

9) Birth Announcement [Al Hewetson/Ramon Torrents]
4p

10) Pin-Up [Pablo Marcos] 1p[on back cover]

Notes: $.75 for 64 pages.Skywald was unique in having summer specials
or annuals that featured all new stories.The best story here is Hewetson’s ‘The Myth Of
Dracula’ while Francisco Cueto provided the best art. Good work also appeared from Robert Kanigher,
Steve Hickman, Ramon Torrents {his American debut}, Carlos
Garzon & Villanova.

Nightmare 1972
Special

1. cover: Vicente Segrelles (Nov. 1972)[edited: Al Hewetson]

1) The Truth Behind The Myth Of
The Bride Of Dracula [Al Hewetson/Juez Xirinius] 1p[frontis]

6) The Nightmare World: A Grave Beneath
The Sea! [Al Hewetson/Bill Payne] 4pfrom a dream by

Joseph Elliott

7) Alone [Bruce Jones] 12p

8) And If A Fiend Should Come A-Callin’ [Al
Hewetson/Luis M. Roca] 6p

9) The Day The Earth Will Die! [Al Hewetson/Ferran
Sostres] 10p

Notes: $.75 for 64 pages.This was the last squarebound issue of the
Skywald line.This is a very good issue
with strong stories throughout.Best
story was Hewetson’s ‘Limb From Limb From Death’,
which was possibly the goriest story that Skywald ever published.Best art is Bruce Jones’ story ‘Alone’ which
also had a very good story.Other fine
work appeared from Juez Xirinius, Ricardo Villamonte, Doug Moench, Luis Roca & Ferran Sostres.

Notes: Publisher: Israel Waldman
& Sol Brodsky.Editor: Sol Brodsky
with Gary Friedrich listed as Script Editor & Bill Everett credited for ‘Special Effects’.$.60 for 64 pages.The Hell-Rider appears to be a
non-supernatural forerunner of Marvel’s Ghost Rider, which was also created or
co-created by Gary Friedrich.Lots of nudity in the Hell-Rider stories.‘Curly’s Cycle Corner’ was a Q & A and
motorcycle advice column.Contributors
were listed on the masthead.The
individual stories themselves are uncredited.All of the stories are also linked by a comman villain, the Claw.

Notes: Final issue.The letters’ page included a bio & photo
of Gary Friedrich.‘Special Effects’ are
credited to Bill Everett & Carlos Garzon.The never published (although advertised) third issue would have
featured a cover by Gray Morrow and a Hell-Rider story entitled ‘The Zodiac
Killers’.

Notes: Publisher: Israel Waldman
& Sol Brodsky.Edited:
Sol Brodsky.$.50
for 64 pages. Unlike the horror titles from Skywald, this crime
magazine’s B&W contents were all reprinted from Waldman’s stock of reprints
from the 1950s.The stories were
uncredited but credits have been established for some of them.A generic G-Man, named Matt Grover in this
issue, was the host, appearing on the titlepage and splash page of each story
and illustrated by Jack Abel.The stories
themselves aren’t too bad, particularly the Kubert selections.

6) City Of Yesterday
[Rich Buckler & Chuck McNaughton/Michael Kaluta] 8pfrom the story by Terry

Carr[published in Psycho #13 as The Horror Within And Without]

7) The Weapon Within Us
[Jack Katz/Jack Katz & Jack Abel] 12p[published in Psycho #21 as The

Gloomb Bomb]

8) The New Science [Don Thompson/Berni Wrightson]
2p[text article, art was published as
spot illos for

the text story ‘The Thing In
The Alley’ and for the Frogs movie review.]

9) Starchild [Bruce Jones] 6p

Notes: Skywald’s famous aborted
magazine would have been the first adult SF comic since EC’s Incredible Science
Fiction, but in the wake of the color line’s collapse and the Waldmans’ belief
that SF didn’t sell, the magazine was withdrawn, although after film had been
made and just before delivery to the printers.Publisher: Israel
Waldman & Sol Brodsky.Editors: Rich
Buckler, Chuck McNaughton & Sol Brodsky.From the first issue’s intended contents, it would have been a pretty
good magazine.

Contents were to include
checklists of Nightmare, Psycho & Scream, articles on the Skywald team,
various

series, an previously unpublished 6 page story
entitled ‘Gulliver’s Island’ by Hewetson & Dennis Fujitake, several
leftover covers, a large piece of art by Gene Day, at least some segments of
the unpublished ‘Arthur Gordon Pym’ Poe adaptation by Hewetson & Cesar
Lopez and more.Publisher & editor Kramer didn’t have the money to go to print and,
after his death, the intended contents were auctioned off on ebay in 2003.Much, although not all, of this material finally
appeared in The Illustrated History Of The Skywald
Horror-Mood.

A 2003 Interview With
Archaic Al Hewetson!

Could
we have some general background about yourself and your first experience with
comics?

When I was a
teenager I was a fan and published my own fanzine called THE PORTRZEBIE ANNUAL,
which was mainly all about EC and Harvey Kurtzman and the MAD artists.And during that time I managed to meet—and
then correspond regulary with—Harvey, Willy Elder, Jack Davis and other EC
artists.But I never dreamed I would
ever get into the field.I first became
aware of the Warren magazines because of Harvey Kurtzman’s HELP!, which was
published by Jim Warren, and I would often talk to Harvey about Jim when I was
a teenager, long before I met him.Many
years passed.I met Stan Lee at Marvel,
and a few months later Stan asked me to become his assistant.So I went directly from being a teenaged fan
to being on staff at Marvel in 1969, when I was around 22 years old.During [that] time I managed to meet almost
everybody I admired in New York,
artists mostly.Writers are mostly
boring.

What
led you to submit stories to Warren?

While I was at
Marvel I used to write stories for other magazines, like DC comics, SICK,
CRACKED, and others, including a piece for CINEMA magazine about the history of
comic book characters on film.I knew
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND had old movie stills so I called them up, talked to
Jim Warren, and he invited me round to met him.He was very helpful providing pictures for my
feature, and we appeared to get along immediately.He asked me to write stories for EERIE and CREEPY
and I did—I sent him stories within about a week and he liked them and asked
for more.He never rejected anything I
ever wrote for him, even though I admit some of my earlier stories were pretty
flimsy.

Who
was your initial editor?What was your experience
with Jim Warren?

I only ever dealt
with Jim Warren personally.I seem to
vaguely recall dealing with Archie Goodwin about something or other, who I knew
from Marvel, but Jim was my only editor, and he didn’t actually edit anything.He’d simply ask me for stories, accept them,
and pass them along to the artists.Jim
was very pleasant during this early period but when I started writing for
Skywald he went ballistic, basically, and called me up and demanded
loyalty.He wanted to monopolize the entire
horror market—that was very apparent to everyone who dealt with him—and many of
us felt that was sheer bullshit, to demand that young writers and artists who
were selling him one or two stories a month should have no other income.I would have stopped dealing with him at that
point even if I weren’t getting along with Skywald so well.At a certain point he and I basically stopped
talking to each other.

However, I have
fond remembrances of our working relationship for a time.I gave him an original PEANUTS cartoon which
is in the background in a couple of the office photographs in THE WARREN
COMPANION, and he autographed and gave me a copy of EERIE #1, which is as much
a genuine treasure now as it was then.I
had a copy of the cover made and it appears in THE ART OF JACK DAVIS.

Later, around
1973, I got a call offering me the job of editing the Warren line.I said no, without even asking for any details.It was an extremely short conversation.I was happy at Skywald.I have been told by several people who were
around in those days that Jim Warren was absolutely furious with me!Harvey Kurtzman laughingly suggested that I
was Jim Warren’s Bob Guccione, referring to the Hefner/Guccione PLAYBOY/PENTHOUSEcompetitive
relationship.I enjoyed writing for
CREEPY, EERIE & VAMPIRELLA while it lasted.Several of the stories worked out quite nicely, like HE WHO LAUGHS LAST
IS GROTESQUE, IT’S GRIM, which I did with SydShores
(the black panther was a sculpture in Syd’s living
room), and THE COOL JAZZ GHOUL, which I really liked doing with Ken Kelly.

What
prompted the move to Skywald and how did you become editor of the line?

After I left
Marvel I was writing for a number of magazines, including Warren, and then Sol
Brodsky, who was now the editor at Skywald and with whom I’d worked at Marvel,
called me up and asked me to write stories for the new Skywald, which I
did.Within a very short time I became
Associate Editor, and when Sol returned to Marvel a few months later he
recommended me to the Waldmans, that I take over as editor.For the record, I had stopped writing for
Warren before I became the editor at Skywald, though probably by only two or
three months, and although they still had some unpublished stories which they
eventually published, certainly by then Jim and I had stopped talking to each
other.

Before
you became editor at Skywald, both PSYCHO & NIGHTMARE closely resembled
CREEPY & EERIE.After a short hiatus
the Skywald magazines returned with a distinct vision you called the
Horror-Mood. What exactly is your
definition of the Horror Mood?

When I became
editor I immediately wanted to make the Skywald magazines distinctly different
from Warren’s and everybody else’s titles on the newsstand—so I bundled up this
little vision within the framework of the Horror-Mood, which wasn’t patterned
after any other magazines that had ever existed, but was inspired by everything
that had ever…had the word horror applied to it.I was particularly enamored of Poe and the
classics, and by Lovecraft who wasn’t exactly ‘unknown’ at the time, but he
wasn’t exactly a household name either.And by then I’d come to love the old EC horror comics, which I didn’t
particularly like as a kid—well, in all fairness they were published in the
early fifties which was a whole generation before my time—but I was aware of
them.So the Horror-Mood was a glass
bowl containing everything I respected about horror, including loftier writers
like Kafka and Doestroevsky and Orwell.

It’s
interesting that no one story from the Skywald magazines can be held up as an
example of the Horror-Mood.Rather, it
seems the Horror-Mood is displayed by reading a number of stories or issues
together, forming a cumulative effect of feverish, desperate trauma; very much
the stuff that H. P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe might write if they were
working today.

Right, well, you
understand the Horror-Mood perfectly.There are, however, certain stories which were pure Horror-Mood
stories-like THE FUNERAL BARGE and KILL, KILL, KILL, AND KILL AGAIN and LIMB
FROM LIMB FROM DEATH and THE SLITHER-SLIME MAN to mention only a few—but the
remark you make about the cumulative effect is interesting, because when I took
over as editor I inherited an art drawer full of unpublished stories which Sol
had bought from various artists and writers, which were not-in-any-way
Horror-Mood type stories, but which I was obligated to use.Still, SCREAM was all Horror-Moodish, and so
were the writings of Ed Fedory and Augustine Funnell, who were my core writing
bullpen.

You
adapted a number of Poe stories but no Lovecraft tales.Were you unable to obtain the rights to those
stories?AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
would have seemed a natural for PSYCHO.

I admit I
thoroughly enjoyed adapting all those Poe stories, along with Robert Louis
Stevenson’s JEKYLL & HYDE and works by Gaston Leroux, Oscar Wilde and Henry
James—all of which were public domain.It was like writing CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, which I had a full set of when
I was a kid.And every one of those
stories wereperfect
Horror-Mood stories.But Lovecraft
wasn’t public domain, and Skywald—surprise!—had a minuscule budget, so although
I would have enjoyed having nightmarish heart attacks adapting his works,
buying adaptation rights were never a serious question.And Lovecraft was more horror-inspirational
than the other guys anyway—so I had much more fun ‘continuing the Cthuhlu
Mythos’ with my shoggoth stories, in which I involved real Skywald people.I did that to involve the reader, and it
worked out very well.

Why
did your back cover text story THE THING IN THE ALLEY appear in both Skywald’s
NIGHTMARE #9 and Warren’s
EERIE #42 at the same time?

That’s incredibly
funny.We had the same printer for a
while and the printer obviously made a mistake, lifting our back cover and
dropping it into EERIE.Jim Warren
must’ve flipped his lid!

I’ll
just note here that apparently not all of the EERIE #42’s have that Skywald
back cover so they must have corrected the printing error at some point during
the printing.Now, how many pseudonyms
did you use?

I don’t know how
many, but they included Joe Dentyn, Stuart Williams, Henry Bergman, Hugh
Laskey, Harvey Lazarus and, of course, Howie Anderson.Howie was very popular with the readers—he
used to get his own fan mail!

What
were your impressions of fellow Skywald writers Ed Fedory and Augustine
Funnell?

Impressions
of Ed and Gus?Ed was emotionally disturbed and Augustine
was awkward!Seriously, they were my
friends.They were great writers and I
bought as many of their stories as I could.The three of us were so disparate in our writing styles [that] we
complemented each other as a well-rounded package.We hung out together as much as possible, and
we’re still friends 30 years later!

Gene Day was
working towards full stories.He wrote
and illustrated a number of single pages himself, only some of which got
published before we went out of business.Gene and I had discussed his doing full length stories before we closed
our doors.…The Eaters by Funnell &
Day was scheduled for a Skywald magazine but we closed our doors about the
point Gene finished the pencils.Later
it was posthumously published in the third issue of Gene Day’s BLACK ZEPPELIN,
with Gene’s brother David completing the inking for the artwork.

What
can you tell us about the proposed Skywald titles such as SCIENCE FICTION
ODYSSEY, TOMB OF HORROR & TALES OF HORROR BY EDGAR ALLAN POE?

Sol was working on
SCIENCE FICTION ODYSSEY when I started working for Skywald but it was cancelled
right before it was to be sent to press, because Skywald had over-extended its
budget on the color comics, and because nobody around the office thought a
science fiction magazine would sell.However, I managed to use ALL the stories scheduled for this magazine in
[either] PSYCHO, SCREAM or NIGHTMARE, including the
cover by Jeff Jones.

We were doing so
well on the newsstands that at one point we wanted to introduce a couple of new
titles, and TOMB OF HORROR was one of them.I was going to have the writers and artists introduce each story, which
I don’t think anyone had ever done [actually Marvel had used something similar
for a very brief period in the latter issues of TOWER OF SHADOWS & CHAMBER
OF DARKNESS—RA].And the POE magazine
was to reprint our Poe and Stevenson and Wilde and Leroux adaptations as
collector issues---not necessarily as a continuing monthly magazine.By about the fall of ’74 when the writing was
on the wall for us we shelved the idea of introducing new magazines and I used
up as many stories as I could in the last issues of NIGHTMARE, PSYCHO &
SCREAM, which perhaps explains why our last couple of issues seem such a
hodgepodge.

What
caused the collapse of the Skywald line?

Marvel’s
distributor.Our issues were selling well, and some sold
out.Such returns as we received were
shipped overseas, mainly to England,
where they sold out completely.We had
built our own huge fan base over just a few years.I’ve always held that Warren and Skywald were
healthy competitors, and that we never did each other financial damage, and
that in fact our joint presence on the newsstand probably helped each other’s
sales.

When Marvel
entered the game with countless titles gutting the newsstand, their distributor
was so powerful they denied Skywald access to all but the very largest
newsstands, so our presence was minimal and fans and readers simply couldn’t find us.Warren’s
sales similarly went downhill during this period.I absolutely assure you, our demise was not
due to declining sales from a loss of readership—but solely due to big business
bully tactics on the part of Marvel’s distributor at the time.The Waldmans and I had a business lunch with
our distributor in the fall of ’74 and we were given very specific information
about the state of affairs on the newsstands—which had nothing to do with
Warren’s or Skywald’s solid readership base.

You
have a book coming out about your Skywald years…

It’s called THE
COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE SKYWALD HORROR-MOOD and it’s a big,
handsome, 225 page book with 21 complete stories by our best artists, new
recollections by Ed Fedory [and] Gus Funnell, new interviews with Pablo Marcos
and Maelo Cintron, features and critiques by David Kerekes, Stephen Sennitt and
Peter Normanton, a complete (and exhaustive) checklist including all the
covers, a feature about my meeting with Fredric Wertham, loads ofunpublished art and photographs, and a
beautiful, original, full color wraparound painting by Pablo Marcos.All the behind-the-scenes information you
could ever want—including loads of interesting details about guys like Harvey
Kurtzman, Stan Lee and Mr. James Warren.It’ll be out in late 2004, and you can get a discount if you order
directly from the publisher at www.headpress.com .Thanks for the plug.I think Warren fans will enjoy it as much as I loved The WARREN COMPANION.

Do
you have any future plans for comic work?

Yes.Having been unearthed after 25-30 years of
living and working in the ‘normal’ world, I’m please to be re-partnered with
two of my old cohorts Pablo Marcos and Maelo Cintron on two new comic books,
both due out during 2004.

Pablo and I are
completing LABYRINTH STREET, an anthology series with an ensemble cast about a
weird street in New Orleans
best described as ‘a corridor to Hell’.Maelo and I are now finishing up the first issue of GARGOYLE JUSTICE,
featuring a grown-up Andy Sartyros, the baby gargoyle from our HUMAN GARGOYLES
series.Andy is now a U.S. marshal in Colorado, and the series continues as a social parody.

Speaking
of the Human Gargoyles, your most popular Skywald characters, they weren’t
really horror characters, were they?

I suppose not.The series was more of a social satire than a
horror story.But they sure fit
comfortably into that glass bowl called the Horror-Mood.

Thank
you, Mr. Hewetson.And that’s all,
folks!

***

Sadly,
less than a month after this interview, Mr. Hewetson passed away on Jan. 6,
2004 from a massive heart attack.During
the last couple of months of his life we emailed each other several times a day
regarding his upcoming book as well as sharing notes to complete his book’s
appendix and make this checklist as complete as possible.He was a warm and generous gentleman and
he’ll be missed.

Al
Hewetson: A Remembrance

by Richard J. Arndt

Well, first, I never actually met Al
Hewetson.In 2003 I posted a Skywald
Checklist on the internet (at www.enjolrasworld.com) and Al contacted me to
see if I knew how to get in touch with Skywald artist Maelo Cintron.I didn’t, but posted his interest on the
website.A couple of weeks later Maelo
emailed me with his addresses and I passed those along to Al.In Nov. 2003 I asked Al if I could interview him for an
issue of the Warren
fanzine SPOOKY and he graciously agreed.From that point right up to the day he passed away we were pretty much
in daily contact, discussing the interview, working on the definitive Skywald
checklist for his book, THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE SKYWALD
HORROR-MOOD and just swapping stories.

One of the last stories he told me was of
artist SydShores.Comics legend Wally Wood had told Al on many
occasions that Wood considered Shores to be the best penciler he ever
knew.Although Syd and Al had been
friends for some years, Syd was angered by what he regarded as a vindictive ink
job on one of his stories for Skywald and swore he’d never work for Al
again.Al told me he spent two years
rebuilding bridges with Syd (whom he greatly admired) and finally got him to
agree to work for him again, only to have Syd drop dead of a massive heart
attack at the age of 58.Less than a
week after telling me the story, Al himself was gone.

Al was in the process of re-entering the
comic field after 25 years, writing two comics—LABYRINTH STREET, an anthology series
with art by Pablo Marcos, and GARGOYLE JUSTICE, an updating of his Skywald
gargoyle series, with original artist Maelo Cintron, as well as writing the
history of his Skywald days.I don’t
know the fate of these comics but I hope they come out.It’d be great to see how his work had
matured.Al’s horror stories were unlike
anybody else’s in the field.Feverish,
garish and, at times, bordering on loony.Sometimes hampered by slapdash artwork but always done with a regard and
respect for the reader that, sadly, seems rare in modern comics.Archie Goodwin did that sort of thing
too.I miss them both.

Take care, Al.*

*
Written for & published in Comic Book Artist.

A 2004 Interview with Ed Fedory!

Thank you for the interview,
Ed Fedory.Can you give us some
background on your early life?What was
your first encounter with comics?

I grew up on Long Island in New York during the 50s and 60s.All the kids on the block had
comic book collections…that’s where most of my allowance money
went.A favorite pastime was trading
comic books with my buddies.My first
comic was a Davy Crockett comic my mother bought me when I was about six years
old.I think that was just after she had
bought me a coon skin cap…just like Fess Parker wore in the Disney series.

How did you become a
professional comic writer?What was it
like to see your work in print for the first time?

I always enjoyed
writing down my thoughts, but was never much of a reader until I got out of
high school.When I went to college I
began reading everything I could get my hands on…fiction…nonfiction.I read a lot of H. P. Lovecraft and, of
course, Bram Stoker.I had a job as a
nightwatchman at an old mill in Lewiston,
Maine when I was going to
college.I worked with a lot of older
men and was called ‘The Kid’ back then.Well, the mill was full of bats so I decided to write a story about
it.I kind of liked the way it came out,
so I sent it off to the fan page at Creepy magazine.They published it.I still have it in a frame.There was no money, but the sight of my first
published story knocked my socks off!

How did your contacts with Warren come about?Did you actually meet anyone from that
organization?

After that story was published, I got a letter from one of
the editors at Warren
Publications by the name of J. R. Cochran.He asked me to put the story I’d written for the fan page into a comic
book format.He guided me through the
process.I guess I will be eternally
grateful for his patience and the opportunity he gave me.I never met J. R. or anyone else at Warren Publications…we
corresponded.Sometimes living with the
fantasy is a lot better than knowing the reality.It’s a concept I’d learn a lot about, later.

What was your experience with
the Warren
editors or Al Hewetson at Skywald?Did
any of them change your scripts or titles?

My experiences at Warren,
as short as they were, were pretty good.Scripts and titles were rarely changed…the same was true at
Skywald.I met Al a few times and he
stayed at my place when he would come down from Canada
to meet with the publishers in New
York City.We
had a very good working relationship, and I always considered Al a friend and
an inspiration.

You had three stories
published in Creepy, then you switched over to the
Skywald books and wrote quite a few for them.Why so few for Warren?

Actually, I wrote six stories for Warren…got paid for all six, but only three
were ever printed.I don’t think the
artist ever completed drawing them before I left for Skywald.The reason for my leaving was due to the fact
that [Jim] Warren
wanted exclusivity.He didn’t want you
writing for anyone else.Well, when my
first story came out in a Skywald publication, the proverbial shit hit the fan.I was given an ultimatum…stop writing for
Skywald…or leave.Simple choice…I left.

Did you work for any other
comic publishers?

Yes, I worked, briefly, for Atlas [Seaboard] Comics.Did the origin issue of Hands Of The Dragon…Kung Fu stuff was very vogue then.I did the second issue, and they cut my pay
rate in half.Packed my bags after that
one and didn’t write for the next three years.Actually, that was the last time I ever wrote a comic book.The experience at Atlas left a lousy taste in
my mouth.

Did you have any favorite
comic artists or writers starting out?

I always loved Berni Wrightson’s artwork…Frank Frazetta’s
covers…Steve Ditko’s style.I used to
look forward to each issue of Dr. Strange.

How did your contact with
Skywald begin?

My contact with Skywald began pretty simply…I had already
been published at Warren
and I sent them a script.I believe my
first contact there was Sol Brodsky.

Skywald was noted for the
almost-feverish application of the ‘horror-mood’, making their horror stories
somewhat unique in the field.Did
Hewetson ever give you an explanation of exactly what the ‘horror-mood’ was?

That is a very interesting question.I am not sure you could pin it down to any
one thing, or series of things.It was a
sense of the macabre…something quite intangible.I’m not sure Al could answer that
question.It was very fluid and seemed
to be always changing.I guess you just
had to be a kind of ‘cork’…you followed the current of the waters and floated
along with it.I could never tell where
Al was going with the ‘horror-mood’…the Gargoyles idea kind of blew me
away…never saw it coming…but the next thing I knew, Al and I were down on the
shores of the Hudson River picking up all the rounded egg-shaped stones and
sending them to readers as Gargoyle eggs!Go figure…what a hoot!

What was your understanding
about why Skywald ceased publication?

I don’t know the answer to that question.I had a sense that they wanted to steamline
their publishing operation and just work on the line of coloring books they
were putting out.I was never very privy
to that end of the business…I was a grunt in the line…following orders…not part
of the brass making command decisions.I
liked it that way.

Do you still keep up with
comics today?

No, I’m sorry to say that I don’t.You don’t see them on the stands at your
local drugstore anymore.I kind of miss
that.I do think about them,
however.Wish I had a few old issues of
Sgt. Rock and Easy Co.That comic had a
lot of ‘heart’…very good scripting, storylines and great artwork.

What are you doing
today?

Well, a lot.I just
retired after 32 years of teaching grade 6…mostly history and English.I have continued to write all of these years
and have a monthly column called The Relic Hunter in a magazine called Western
And Eastern Treasures.Basically, I
visit places of historic significance with a metal detector, and write about my
fines and experiences.I dig sites
dating back to the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the
Civil War.I also re-enact.We dress up in colonial period costumes…have
mock battles, and attempt to live as people did during colonial times.It’s a lot of fun.I also have a big barn with a woodshop, and I
am constantly working on projects…my tractors…and taking care of 36 chickens.It’s all very interesting and I never know
what I’m going to be doing next.Who
knows…maybe one of these days I’ll even write another horror comic story!You just never know!

Thank you again, Ed Fedory!

A 2004 Interview with Augustine Funnell!

Thanks for taking the time
for this interview.First, can we have a
little background on your early life and interests?

Until I was thirteen I lived in the country in Southern Ontario.I went to a little one-room school.Eight grade, and at most, thirty pupils.It was in this little school that Gene Day
and I met.His family moved into the
school district when he was in the third grade (he was a year older than I, so
I would have been in second), and since I was always writing little stories and
he was always drawing something, we hit it off right away.The next year I started in the third grade
but by the end of the year was moved up to the fourth, so we went through the
rest of our school years in the same grade.We spent an awful lot of free time writing and drawing comics, or just
writing stories.Recesses, after school,
sometimes weekends, we were often telling stories in one way or another.

When I was thirteen, my family moved into the nearby town
of Gananoque, but since that was the year I started high school, it meant that
Gene was also starting, and he hopped onto a school bus every morning and
headed into the same town for the same school.We certainly weren’t inseparable, or even absolute best buddies, but we
sure did spend a lot of time together.

I was interested in sports (hockey and baseball) and—naturally—reading.The Hardy Boys, Edgar Rice Burroughs
fantasies, adventure stuff, sf.I
remember reading my first copy of an old Doc Savage pulp in about 1963 or 1964
and I got hooked on that stuff right jeezly quickly.Gene
had liberated it from an abandoned
farmhouse (ironically, the house had been my grandfather’s for a long time
before.)That stuff took us in
additional directions.

How
did you become interested in comics?

As I mentioned, my
interest in comics was the natural one which most kids have, nourished through
contact with a like-minded kid in Gene Day.It just seemed natural to us that we should write and draw our own.

How
did your contact with Skywald come about?

Skywald came about
for no other reason than because from early childhood I wanted to write for a living, and comic stories were one of the things I wanted to
write.I would come up with scripts,
fire ‘em into the postal orifice, and in due time get them back whence they had
been sent, with the usual notes about the script not fitting current needs, or
no additional material being needed.But
when one has done a thing for almost as long as he can remember, and he’s not
really good anything else (not that I was all that good at writing comics,
either), he just keeps plugging away.Which I did.I sent
out mainly horror scripts, addressed to anyone who was publishing horror
comics.Skywald was one of the possible
publishers on my list.

Who
were your contacts at Skywald?What was
your experience with editorial?

My first contact
at Skywald was Jeff Rovin, who was the first editor who showed any
interest.But before I could write
anything good enough for him to buy, he was replaced by Al Hewetson, who early
in the game informed me that while he liked some of my stuff, he was doing
virtually all of the writing, and that since there was no money budgeted for
anyone else anyway, he couldn’t afford to buy anything.I had another script ready to go when I got
this particular rejection letter, so I just wrote back to tell him hat while I
understood that Skywald couldn’t afford to buy anything, I couldn’t afford not to
send things.Therefore, please consider
the enclosed story…

I don’t remember
too much editorial interference, really.I would say that easily 95% of the time I sent off a story Al either
bought it or returned it (mostly that second thing) .For the miniscule rest he suggested or
insisted upon changes.For the most part
I think he saw my stuff as a bit of balance for what he was writing…a different
slant, or a different style, or a different something, so it pretty much went
through as submitted.Which
doesn’t mean that there weren’t suggestions…there were lots of those.But interference of the usual writer-bitching-about-an-editor?Not much.I do remember titles were a big thing for Al, and he did occasionally
suggest something less mundane than what I had used.But as time went on I got a better feel for
what he wanted, and I was able to come up with titles [that] suited us both.At least, they suited me then.Now, I’m not so sure…

Your
serial, ‘Monster, Monster’, was never concluded.Was an ending written?Where did you see the story going?

That
serial.Phuck.I didn’t think when I wrote it that it was
all that good and today, upon reflection, I see no real reason to think
otherwise.It was just…I don’t
know.Goofy.The first story or two were okay, but it
never felt like it had any cohesion, which made me feel like I wasn’t playing
fair.Al did make some suggestions for
the series (I can’t remember if I used them or not, but I suspect I did).He liked series material to be a little on
the convoluted side, and while I have no objections to convoluted storytelling,
I didn’t feel that I did a very good job with this one.But Al seemed to like it and there might have
been two fan letters, so I plugged away.And occasionally, even today, I will get the occasional email note
complimenting the series.So there may
be a jot or a little more to the series than I give it credit for, but I have
my doubts.

An ending wasn’t
exactly written, but one was certainly outlined, and the series was definitely
going to end.It was some convoluted,
nonsensibal thing which, at present, I honestly can’t remember.But when Skywald went tits-up Al asked me to
write something about the series and my experiences with Skywald so I did.He sent that essay back to me almost thirty
years later to be updated for the ‘Complete Illustrated History of the Skywald
Horror-Mood’ which David Kerekes of Headpress is putting out.If anyone is truly interested in how that
lunacy was going to play out, it’s in the book.I remember there was a twist of some sort (what are the odds?????), but
I can’t remember the details.

Was
‘The Eaters’ story you did with Gene Day intended for Skywald or for Orb?Orb advertised the story for the never
published 7th issue but it seemed much more like a Skywald
tale.I ask because I’ve heard several
different versions for that story’s origin & intended publication.

According to
Renegade Press, which eventually published the story in ‘Gene Day’s Black
Zeppelin’, it was written for Skywald.Then I believe Orb showed interest, but went the way of the dodo before
anything could happen.Me, I just don’t
remember for certain (I had a lot of stories that were going to be published somewhere, but never were).So flip a coin.If everyone else says it was Skywald-bound,
who am I to argue?Writers can’t be
relied upon for accuracy where their stories are concerned, anyway.

Do
you have a favorite story personally?

I have to say,
again, in all honesty that I’m not too enthusiastic about most of my
stuff.There may have been potential in
some of the stories, but I don’t believe that it was fully realized.If you put a gun to my head and insisted that
I pick one, I suppose that I would carefully weigh the advantages of answering
or not, and if I opened my mouth the words ‘You Can’t Judge A Killer By The
Corpse’ or ‘Down To Hades To Die’ might come out.Maybe.

Whose
work in comics did (and do) you like?

Archie
Goodwin’s stuff.Frazetta, of course.Denny O’Neil’s stuff.I though our own Ed Fedory was pretty
good.Wrightson.Tom Sutton.Early Jack Kirby.Steve Ditko.John Severin.Pablo Marcos and Maelo Cintron, naturally.Will Eisner.Jeff Jones.It occurs to me a
complete list would take far too long.I
liked an awful lot of people.Of course,
there were guys whose work left one cold as death in a freezer, but there’s no
point in listing that crew.These days I’m not reading much in the way of
comic material, but I must admit some fondness for the work John Gallagher [of
Chimera Arts] is putting out.Outside
the comic field I’ve read across the board.Mark Twain, Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Thomas
Harris, John Irving, John Kendrick Bangs, John D. MacDonald, P. J. O’Rourke,
Henry Kuttner, Fredric Brown and so on and so forth.

When
Skywald folded, did you look elsewhere for comic work?

Yes, I did, but
without too much luck.Charlton
published a story.Orb.And Seaboard [Atlas], where Jeff Rovin was
working, also bought one.But it was
tough going, so I concentrated a little more on short stories and longer prose
works for the sf/fantasy/horror markets.I’d always written those anyway, of course, even while working in
comics, but since there seemed no future for me in comics, I concentrated more
on them.

Please
bring us up to date.What are you doing
now?

Well, after that
complete domination of the comic book world I mentioned.I wrote a lot
of prose stuff, and fairly quickly drifted away for comics.I sold a couple of inane sf/adventure novels,
and about a dozen sf/fantasy/horror stories/novelettes to a variety of
magazines.Two of the stories were
included in a couple of year’s best anthologies, but that sounds more impressive than it is.In total, I guess I spent about twenty-five years writing as much as I
could, and that’s my oeuve.Except for a
killer drug poem in Rolling Stone, that is.I’m one of the horde of people who put all their energies into writing
for ‘X’ length of time, had just enough success to keep them in the vain hope
that they might be able to pull off an actual living at it, but who in the end
just didn’t have enough cookies to make up a whole chocolate chip package.But that’s okay…some people don’t even have
the chips.As [for] these days, when I’m
not drinking or serving time in prison, I am a form of life even lower than a
writer of horror comics: I’m a bookseller.I have an on-line business [www.gusbooks.com], and I deal in used,
collectable and out-of-print titles.As
when I wrote, I spent weeks trying to come up with just the right combination
of words to name my business, and finally settled on something I feel certain
no one else could have created: Augustine Funnell Books.

RA:
Thanks, Gus, for the interview and some fondly remembered stories.

An
Interview With Maelo Cintron!

RA:Hello, Mr. Cintron.Could you tell us a little
of your background?

MC: Well, I was
born in Puerto Rico in a little city called
Fajardo.I moved to the United States when I was bout five years old,
and grew up in Brooklyn.

RA:
When did you first get involved with comics?

MC: I became
involved with comics early, not because I read them, but because of the
art.Whenever I picked up a comic and
disliked the art, I would put it down and look for something else.At that time, I particularly liked the art in
some of the Western comics, as well as some of the Superman comics.Although I loved the art in the EC horror
comics, I stayed away from them, fearing that I would have nightmares.

RA:
How did you get involved with Skywald and Al Hewetson?Was that your comics
debut?

MC: At that time, I was reading the Warren magazines, loving the
artwork of people like Frank Frazetta, Neal Adams and Al Williamson.I then became inspired to do comics, so I
thought I’d give it a shot, and possibly make a few bucks.At Skywald, I had called to make an
appointment to see Sol Brodsky, but he was moving back to Marvel.However, Alan Hewetson met me instead, buying a one-page sampler that I created called
‘Game Of Skill’.

RA:
I remember that one!Who was the
“Kinsman” who wrote it?

MC: The “Kinsman”
was my ex-wife, Joan.Kinsman was her
maiden name, so I used that.Sometime
afterwards, we also did a vampire story called ‘Daughter Of
Darkness’, which she received credit for writing.

RA:
Can you tell us about your work on the Human Gargoyles?

MC: When I first
started working on the Gargoyles, I hated it because I pretty much had no idea
what I was doing.I also hated it
because it was taking forever.However,
as I went along I felt that my artwork started to improve.I continued to work on it, and the work
itself became easier for me.Thus I
started to enjoy it.

RA:
Were there any unpublished chapters of the Gargoyles?I know there was one cover for a special
featuring them that wasn’t published.

MC: There was one
Gargoyle chapter that wasn’t used because the magazine folded.I remember trying to buy it back later on,
but was told that the art was put away in some warehouse, and they {the
Waldmans} did not know where it was.The
Gargoyle cover that wasn’t published was by a Spanish artist by the name of
Vicente Segrelles.I too did some work
on it, changing some of the colors, and the Human Gargoyle pose, increasing its
animation.

RA:
What was your understanding as to what the Horror-Mood was?

MC: Spooky.The only thing Al ever said to me was “good,
put in more spider’s webs!Have people drooling from their mouths!”

RA:
What was your impression of Al Hewetson?

MC: Al was a
mild-mannered individual.I liked him
from the start.We had great plans for
the future.

RA:
When Skywald folded, did you move on to any other comic companies?

MC: When Skywald
folded, I concentrated on doing paperback covers and magazine covers.This is due to the fact that I thought I
wouldn’t be able to make a living doing comics, being as they were so
time-consuming for me.I began making
the rounds of publishers.

I sold my first
three pieces to Warren
Publications, covers for Famous Monsters Of
Filmland.They used one of them, but I
don’t know what they did with the other two.I went on and worked for Dell Publishing, doing
illustrations for may subjects.I also
did about twelve of the Star Trek covers for Pocket Books. I worked for Tor Books, and a few years ago I
did a comic story for a magazine called Forbidden Zone.

RA:
Shortly before his death, Al contacted me to see if I knew where you could be
located, because he wanted to do a new Gargoyle story with you.Several weeks later, you contacted me and I
passed along your address.I know the
story was started.Was it ever
finished?Is there any possibility of it
being published?

MC: After he contacted me and told me about the book he was
publishing about the Skywald Horror-Mood period, we talked a lot over the
internet.We began speaking about
bringing back the Human Gargoyles, making it take place out West.The original Human Gargoyle baby would be all
grown up, working as a marshall.One day, Alan sent me a complete story, and I
started working on it.I did the color
cover for that story, which they used for a fan magazine in England, called From The Tomb.The art for
the story was never completed, due to his untimely death.At this point in time, the story itself does
not look like it will be completed, mainly because we don’t know if we can get
it published.But who knows?

RA:
What comic artists or writers did or do you enjoy?Do you still keep up with the field?

MC:
I enjoy the work of artists like Alex Ross, and old timers like Alex Toth, Al
Williamson, Neal Adams, and many of the Spanish artists.I
don’t keep up too well with writers.

RA:
Any final thoughts or words?

MC: Not really.I’d
just like to say that it is very sad and unfortunate that Al passed away before
seeing his book, The Complete Illustrated History Of
The Skywald Horror-Mood published.He
would have loved it.

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